The role of the pediatric nurse in management of care includes the following:

1. Serving as an advocate for the child and family, such as informing the child and family of all treatments and procedures.
2. Coordinating clinical case management to provide access to high-quality clinical resources appropriate to the level of care needed, such as referring a child to an acute rehabilitation facility following spinal cord injury.
3. Coordinating continuity of care across the health-care delivery continuum, such as discussing the needs of the child and family with the home-care nurse before the child's discharge in a spica cast.
4. Delegating care to and supervising care among various members of the health-care delivery team, such as assigning a float nurse to care for selected clients on the pediatrics unit.
5. Completing incident/irregular occurrence/variance reports as needed, including filing, monitoring, and analyzing reports of drug reactions to a new medication.
6. Working toward continuous quality improvement, such as studying incident reports of accidents on the pediatrics unit to determine what changes in practice are needed to increase client safety.
7. Suggesting organ donationto selected families when appropriate—for example, asking the family whose 16-year-old child has been declared brain dead about the possibility of organ donation.
8. Collaborating with other members of the health-care team in consultation and referrals, such as requesting a psychiatric consultation for a child who is depressed.
9. Coordinating resource management, such as reminding the unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) to stamp all equipment charge forms used for each child.